Multi-Agent Automatic Negotiation and Argumentation for Courses Scheduling

Abstract

This paper proposes an argumentation and negotiation mechanism for multi-agent systems. Through argumentations and negotiations, agents obtain more information on the topics of common interests or on those they have odds with. At the inception of the negotiation, agents can hardly understand completely the goals and beliefs other agents have toward related issues. Through argumentations and negotiations, the beliefs evolve, and agents will have better understanding about each other's target needs and preferences. During negotiations, agents can select the proposal that better suits other agents, further improving the chances for the agents to reach a consensus. Lastly, this paper illustrates our proposed methods through a simple course-scheduling negotiating system.